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what is the evidence that universe is 13.7B years old?

46AND2

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I agree. But that is exactly how scientists often work (this thread is a good example).

My point is that it is not true science to look at the conclusion (what exists now) and guess about how long it has existed or how it came to be when it is impossible to definitively prove.

It is "science" as religion rather than true science.

It isn't guessed, it's measured. With multiple techniques. Which agree with each other. Definitively prove? No. But with each unique measurement that matches with others, it increases the probability that the result is correct. Which is all science claims to do in the first place.
 
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AV1611VET

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............................................... :swoon:
What's with the fainting spell?

If there are Christians who "have no issues with science discovering HOW god created" [sic], then let them present this science to us (okay, to me), and if it's true science, why aren't atheists buying it?
 
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2PhiloVoid

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What's with the fainting spell?

If there are Christians who "have no issues with science discovering HOW god created" [sic], then let them present this science to us (okay, to me), and if it's true science, why aren't atheists buying it?

It's just all such a semantic mess. But I get it, "how" doesn't quite conceptually fit for those of us who rely on Methodological Naturalism rather than on the philosophical measures of either I.D./Creationism or atheistic PN.
 
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AV1611VET

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It's just all such a semantic mess. But I get it, "how" doesn't quite conceptually fit for those of us who rely on Methodological Naturalism rather than on the philosophical measures of either I.D./Creationism or atheistic PN.
Beats me about all that.

All I know is that they (Christians, atheists, whomever) can look until they're blue in the tooth for scientific evidence of the Creation Week, and they aren't going to find any.

If they did, I'm sure they'd share it with the unbelievers.

I've even asked for what they would look for specifically, such as here:
What an odd statement.

What kind of evidence are you expecting to see?

Ion trail? time crystals? vapor clouds? microwave background? spare parts lying around?

What exactly?
 
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Hans Blaster

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You make a good point (and what I am asking). I find it more logical to believe in God than to believe there has always existed some thing that has the properties on and of itself (without intellect) to spontaneously spark a universe, complex life, ect.

Ultimately it is a choice of faith. Where does one put their faith? In an unknown source that existed eternally and somehow became a universe? In God?

I put my faith in things that I can examine the evidence of. The expanding universe. I can see that evidence. God - not so much. I had no choice to prioritize one over the other.
 
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2PhiloVoid

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Beats me about all that.

All I know is that they (Christians, atheists, whomever) can look until they're blue in the tooth for scientific evidence of the Creation Week, and they aren't going to find any.
... right. But in the case of Methodological Naturalism, the conceptual underpinnings are such that divine variables aren't expected to be measurable BECAUSE they cannot be scientifically controlled for in bona fide EXPERIMENTS.

Now, here's a small caveat: where 'softer science' [rather than hard science] pertains to making rational assessments, basic explanations, and hypotheses APART FROM actual experiments, it's not irrational for a person (like myself) to make an inference here or there about how 'it seems me' that a Divine Hand (i.e. specifically even of our Lord) was at play in it all. It's just that I also know it's not really scientifically testable; we can't find clear traces of God's Fingerprints with repeatable verifications through bona fide experiments.

If they did, I'm sure they'd share it with the unbelievers.

I've even asked for what they would look for specifically, such as here:
I think the BARNA group of researchers (along with the PEW researchers) has done a good job of vetting out as to 'why' many people are atheists today. And it isn't simply because "There's not enough evidence, God!!!" No, it's a bit more than that. But now, we're off on a different track ... and I don't want to go down that track here in this thread. :argh:
 
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I put my faith in things that I can examine the evidence of. The expanding universe. I can see that evidence. God - not so much. I had no choice to prioritize one over the other.
I am the same (although we have come to different conclusions) .

We all make our choices, and I certainly don't think poorly of you for yours.
 
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It isn't guessed, it's measured. With multiple techniques. Which agree with each other. Definitively prove? No. But with each unique measurement that matches with others, it increases the probability that the result is correct. Which is all science claims to do in the first place.
It is measured from one "point" to another. The application of the data (we agree on the data) is where the guess comes in.

It is not science, per se, but a religion (a faith) based on science (the science ended with what was observed, analyzed and predicted).
 
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You should see my sister!

If anything is evidence of macroevolution, she is! ;)

d76c751d8322821617f7b709294d8339.jpg
Who are you who are so wise in the ways of science? :)
 
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AV1611VET

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Who are you who are so wise in the ways of science? :)
HA!

Eyes barn ignit; eyes die ignit!

I wear my ignorance like a badge of honor.

And I'm glad I'm ignorant too, because it allows me to rely more on faith, when it comes to the Creation Week and the Flood, which are my two strong points.

Put another way, science can't cloud my mind and stunt my spiritual growth; if it does anything, it can only strengthen it.
 
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Hans Blaster

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Since we are pushing 10 pages and approaching 200 posts … did anyone ever identify the source of the data that the OP requested? (That’s too much Off Topic debate on YEC vs OE Science to wade through). :sleep:

The short answer is: NO. There wasn't some big get together with the scientists from various fields getting together for a consensus. The modern 13.7 Gyr age is given by the one science that actually studies the history and development of the Universe as a whole: Cosmology. (Much of it comes from one experiment, cross checked by others and various "joint analyses".)

In the early days of rigorous geology it was clear that the time to form rocks was a million years or more, but the ages required a lot of educated guess work (how long does it take for a particular rock formation to accumulate, etc.). Likewise paleontology and evolutionary biology put similar constraints such that the Earth was probably tens to hunderds of million years old, but the values were not precise.

Then with the atomic age came radiometric dating, specifically techniques involving the decay of Uranium. These put the age of the Earth in the 4.5 Gyr (with 0.2 Gyr or smaller error bars) range about 60 years ago and the value hasn't budged since. This gives a *minimum* age for the Universe since the Earth is presumably not older than the Universe. (Unless the Earth is *really* weird.) Radioactivities from meteors and the Moon. Confirm this age.

The other constraints/measurements of the Universe came from the ages of stars and the structure of the Universe. Many of these were boosted in the last 50 years by the development of CCDs to precisely measure photon counts from distant stars, larger and space-borne telescopes, and computer hardware and software to handle the large amounts of data.

On the stellar side, models of the Sun confirmed the age of the Solar System. Then globular clusters in our own Galaxy were measured with thousands of nearly-equal aged stars in each. The H-R diagrams of the stars brightness and surface temperature (color) were compared to the isoschrones of coeval stellar evolution models to get ages from the clusters (and as a bonus the distance). These gave ages for the oldest globular custers in the range of 12-17 Gyr (or so, I'm working from memory). There was some uncertainty to be clear.

On the cosmological side there were a lot of reason to think the Universe was "flat" and in the simple models would mean the Universe would slow down in expansion asymptotically to a halt as opposed to a closed universe that would collapse back, or an open universe that would expand forever. This was supported by some observations and simple models of the Universe. With that notion in place various measurements of the local expansion rate (the Hubble expansion) translated directly to the age of the Universe. The expansion measurement each had error terms and didn't fully agree, so when I learned basic cosmology 30 years ago the "safe" value for the age of the universe was 10-20 Gyr based on the various stellar age and expansion measurements. That would all change in the next decade.

It was increasingly clear that the matter detected by astronomers was not sufficient for the apparent "flat Universe" scenario. The visible matter (bayronic matter) was way short of the amount needed for a flat universe, and even the dark matter (a placeholder name for matter that doesn't interact with light) detected through the motions of galactic rotation and galaxy clusters was not sufficient. There were then 3 kinds of matter: visible, dark, and "missing" where the "missing" matter was needed for cosmology, but nothing else.

This was solved in the late 1990s by the discovery of the acceleration of the Universe by using the brightness of distant Type Ia supernovae. These were further away than their observed brightness would imply. Translating this "accelerating factor" into a cosmology resulted in a "Dark Energy"- an unknown bit of physics that acts like a "negative pressure" causing acceleration of the expansion of the universe. This "dark energy" fit right in the slot of the "missing matter" (after all matter and energy have the same impact in GR) and quickly set the content of the roughly flat universe at about 30% matter (baryonic and dark) and 70% "dark energy".

Then came WMAP, a satellite to measure the fluctuations in the microwave background. It's first year of data released in early 2003 set the age of the Universe at 13.4 +/- 0.3 Gyr by itself and confirmed the flat nature of the Universe. When added to the supernova and other data in a "joint analysis" the age of the Universe was 13.7 +/- 0.3 Gyr. The full data set from WMAP (released in 2012) gives the age of the Universe at 13.74 +/-0.11 Gyr just from WMAP data and 13.772 +/- 0.059 Gyr including all available reported data.

When I was in that class we would have considered it ludicrous to think we could know the age of the universe to 0.5%, but now we do.
 
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2PhiloVoid

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HA!

Eyes barn ignit; eyes die ignit!

I wear my ignorance like a badge of honor.

And I'm glad I'm ignorant too, because it allows me to rely more on faith, when it comes to the Creation Week and the Flood, which are my two strong points.

Put another way, science can't cloud my mind and stunt my spiritual growth; if it does anything, it can only strengthen it.

Lol! ... y'know, AV, I think you're making a little bigger fuss about all of this science stuff than it probably has to be.

And in the midst of this, if I actually thought some septic skeptic was only here to put the ol' Kibosh on your faith, I'd be one of the first ones to land full frontal on them. That, I guarantee, would not be a pretty sight!

iu


However, I don't see anyone here (that I know of) doing that kind of thing. At least, not anymore since they closed the Apologetics section on CF. :rolleyes:
 
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Astrid

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No, none of those are examples. Those are examples of energy constraint or utilization.

I think we are talking about different circumstances.

You are talking about energy acting, and being acted upon, in an already existing world.

I am talking about energy itself and asking about the initial formation of anything.

Where you speak trees, rivers, and dams (and their effects) I am asking about the beginning of things.

I agree that trees use energy. I agree that men eat food. I agree that a dam constrains water.

Then don't bring in the 2n.d law and say it always applies.

And denying they are examples of energy in aow state concentrating in a
higher state is ridiculous.

Asis any claim that the flow of energy does not organize matter,
bring order to chaos.

If you want to talk origin of the universe you are in way over your head
 
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Astrid

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Another issue is nature itself.

Animal traits are developed for survival within a system.

If evolution is true, absent an intelligence behind that evolution, then our cognitive abilities have to be survival mechanisms. We can only rely on our intellect to meet our needs, not to understand actual reality.



Yet another assertion.
 
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Astrid

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It is measured from one "point" to another. The application of the data (we agree on the data) is where the guess comes in.

It is not science, per se, but a religion (a faith) based on science (the science ended with what was observed, analyzed and predicted).

Saying science is religion is against forum rules, for a reason.
 
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Then don't bring in the 2n.d law and say it always applies.

And denying they are examples of energy in aow state concentrating in a
higher state is ridiculous.

Asis any claim that the flow of energy does not organize matter,
bring order to chaos.

If you want to talk origin of the universe you are in way over your head
The 2nd Law does apply to energy in all cases (hence it is the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics). That you seem to think the laws of physics only apply at times calls into question your place in this discussion.

You are talking about the control of energy - NOT energy itself.

Do you really not understand the difference?
 
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